Veteran Labour MP Tony Benn dies at 88

Veteran left-wing politician Tony Benn, a former Labour cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s, has died aged 88, his family said Friday.

“It is with great sadness that we announce that our father Tony Benn died peacefully early this morning at his home in west London surrounded by his family,” said a statement from his children Stephen, Hilary, Melissa and Joshua.

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“We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all the NHS staff and carers who have looked after him with such kindness in hospital and at home.

“We will miss above all his love which has sustained us throughout our lives. But we are comforted by the memory of his long, full and inspiring life and so proud of his devotion to helping others as he sought to change the world for the better.”

Benn successfully campaigned to allow members of the nobility to refuse their inherited seats in the House of Lords. As such he was briefly Viscount Stansgate, before legislation allowed him to resign from the Lords and return to the Commons.